10. 1990 Testimony of Nayirah:
A 15-year-old girl named “Nayirah” testified before the U.S.
Congress that she had seen Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from
incubators, causing them to die. The testimony helped gain major public support
for the 1991 Gulf War, but — despite protests that the dispute of this
story was itself a conspiracy theory — it was later discovered that the
testimony was false.
The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was in
the employ of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, had arranged the testimony. It turned
out that she had taken acting lessons on request of the CIA and was actually
the niece of a major politician in Kuwait. Nayirah was later disclosed to be
Nayirah al-Sabah, daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwaiti ambassador to
the USA.
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus, of which Congressman
Tom Lantos was co-chairman, had been responsible for hosting Nurse Nayirah, and
thereby popularizing her allegations. When the girl’s account was later
challenged by independent human rights monitors, Lantos replied, “The notion
that any of the witnesses brought to the caucus through the Kuwaiti Embassy
would not be credible did not cross my mind… I have no basis for assuming that
her story is not true, but the point goes beyond that.
If one hypothesizes that the woman’s story is fictitious
from A to Z, that in no way diminishes the avalanche of human rights
violations.” Nevertheless, the senior Republican on the Human Rights Caucus,
John Edward Porter, responded to the revelations “by saying that if he had
known the girl was the ambassador’s daughter, he would not have allowed her to
testify.”
--------------
Nayirah Testimony [1]
refers to the controversial testimony given before the
non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10,
1990, by a female who provided only her first name, Nayirah. In her emotional
testimony, Nayirah stated that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she
had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a
Kuwaiti hospital, take the incubators, and leave the babies to die. Though
reporters did not then have access to Kuwait, her testimony was regarded as
credible at the time and was widely publicized. It was cited numerous times by
United States senators and the president in their rationale to back Kuwait in
the Gulf War.
Her story was initially corroborated by Amnesty
International and testimony from evacuees. Following the liberation
of Kuwait, reporters were given access to the country and found the story
of stolen incubators unsubstantiated. However, they did find that a number of
people, including babies, died when nurses and doctors fled the country.
In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah's last name was al-Ṣabaḥ
(Arabic: نيره الصباØ) and that she was the
daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United
States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part
of theCitizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run
by Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government. Following
this, al-Sabah's testimony has largely come to be regarded as
wartime propaganda.
Background
Incubator allegations
Iraqis are beating people, bombing and shooting. They are
taking all hospital equipment, babies out of incubators . Life-support systems
are turned off. . . . They are even removing traffic lights. The Iraqis are
beating Kuwaitis, torturing them, knifing them, beating them, cutting their
ears off if they are caught resisting or are with the Kuwaiti army or police.
—Evacuee's description as reported in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Following the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait, there
were reports from of widespread looting. On September 2, 1990 in a letter to
the UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Kuwait's UN representative,
Mohammad A. Abulhasan, wrote:
Further to those of our communications which are intended to
inform you of the actions perpetrated by the Iraqi occupation authorities in
Kuwait in contravention of all international laws, and on the basis of
confirmed information provided to us by the Government of Kuwait, we wish to
draw attention to a phenomenon which has no precedent in history, namely, the
Iraqi occupation authorities' organized operation for the purpose of looting
and plundering Kuwait. It is impossible to compare this operation to any
similar incidents or to provide an exact account thereof because it is in
effect an operation designed to achieve nothing less than the complete removal
of Kuwait's assets, including property belonging to the State, to public and
private institutions and to individuals, as well as the contents of houses,
factories, stores, hospitals, academic institutes, schools, and
universities...What has occurred in Kuwait is the perpetration of an act of
armed robbery by a State which has used its military, security and technical
organs for that purpose.
In the letter, Abulhasan also noted that "theft of all
equipment from private and public hospitals, including X-ray machines, scanners
and pieces of laboratory equipment."The allegations of looting were also
retold by evacuees who described "soldiers looting office buildings,
schools and hospitals for air conditioners, computers, blackboards, desks, and
even infant incubators and radiation equipment." Douglas Hurd, the British
Secretary for foreign affairs surmised that "they are looting and destroying
in a way which suggests that they may not expect to be there for very
long."
The looting of incubators attracted media attention because
of allegations that premature babies were being discarded or dying as a result.
On September 5, Abdul Wahab Al-Fowzan, the Kuwaiti health minister-in-exile,
stated at a press conference in Taif, Saudi Arabia "that Iraqi soldiers
had seized virtually all of the country's hospitals and medical institutions
after their invasion" and that "soldiers evicted patients and
systematically looted the hospitals of high-tech equipment, ambulances, drugs
and plasma" which resulted in the death of 22 premature babies. The
Washington Post described the origin of the Kuwaiti baby story as follows:
The Kuwaiti baby story originated with a letter from a
senior Kuwaiti public health official that was smuggled out of the country by a
European diplomat late last month, according to Hudah Bahar, an architect who
received the letter here in London. It was supplemented by information gathered
from fleeing Kuwaitis and other sources by Fawzia Sayegh, a Kuwaiti
pediatrician living here. The letter claimed that Iraqi soldiers ordered
patients evicted from several hospitals and closed down critical units for treating
cancer patients, dialysis patients and those suffering from diabetes. Bahar and
Sayegh said the Iraqis hauled sophisticated equipment such as dialysis machines
back to Baghdad, part of the haul of cash, gold, cars and jewelry that is said
by Arab banking sources to exceed $2 billion. Among the equipment taken were
the 22 infant incubator units, they said.
The Washington Post also noted that it was unable to
verify the accusations as Iraq did not permit access to the area and had
quarantined diplomats.
On September 5, in another letter to the UN Secretary
General, Abulhasan reiterated Fowzan's claims writing:
We are informed by impeccable sources in Kuwait's health
institutions that the Iraqi occupation authorities have carried out the
following brutal crimes, which may be described as crimes against humanity: ...
2. The incubators in maternity hospitals used for children suffering from
retarded growth (premature children) have been removed, causing the death of
all the children who were under treatment.
The letter did not state how many babies had died.The
allegations in the letter received widespread media coverage in the following
days. That day, in an interview with released hostages on NPR's All Things
Considered, a hostage stated that Iraqi troops were "hitting children with
the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the
incubators." Reuters also reported they had been told "that Iraqi
troops took premature babies out of incubators in Kuwait in order to steal the
equipment."
On September 9, NPR reported that "in a ward for
premature infants, soldiers had turned off the oxygen on incubators and packed
the equipment for shipment to Iraq."
On September 17, Edward Gnehm Jr., the U.S.
ambassador-designate to Kuwait, told reporters that Kuwaiti health officials
told him 22 babies had died when Iraqi troops had stolen their
incubators. The Los Angeles Times reported that "refugees
reported that incubators for premature babies were confiscated by Iraqi troops
and the babies inside were piled on the floor and left to die." TheSan
Jose Mercury News also reported the same allegation that day, adding that
Western diplomats thought "this is the kind of thing that some people call
genocide, and if people wanted to construe it as such, it could be cause for
some kind of military intervention."
On September 25, the Washington Post reported that
"Kuwait City's hospitals are being stripped of incubators."
The president ofCitizens for a Free Kuwait wrote to
Representative Gus Yatron stating of how he "recently learned that the
Iraqi leader has ordered that maternity hospital incubators [in Kuwait], used
for treating premature babies, be turned off, allowing these infants to die of
exposure."
On September 29, in a meeting between Kuwaiti leader Sheik
Jabbar al Ahmed al Sabah and president George Bush Sr., the exiled emir told
the president that Iraqis were "going into hospitals, taking babies out of
incubators and people off life-support machines to send the equipment back to
Iraq."
In his remarks following the discussion, Bush stated that
"Iraqi aggression has ransacked and pillaged a once peaceful and secure
country, its population assaulted, incarcerated, intimidated, and even
murdered" and that "Iraq's leaders are trying to wipe an
internationally recognized sovereign state, a member of the Arab League and the
United Nations, off the face of the map."
On September 28, Kuwait's planning minister, Sulaiman Mutawa
reported that 12 babies had died as a result of incubator looting.
On September 30, U.S. News & World Report reported
that that it had obtained secret US government cables based on eyewitness
accounts that revealed "shocking acts of brutality inflicted by the Iraqis
against innocent citizens at Kuwaiti hospitals." The cables stated that on
the sixth day of Iraqi invasion, Iraqi soldiers "entered the Adan Hospital
in Fahaheel looking for hospital equipment to steal" and that "they
unplugged the oxygen to the incubators supporting 22 premature babies and made
off with the incubators" thus killing the 22 children.
On October 9, at a Presidential news conference, Bush
stated:
I thought General Scowcroft [Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs] put it very well after the Amir left here. And I am
very much concerned, not just about the physical dismantling but of the
brutality that has now been written on by Amnesty International confirming some
of the tales told us by the Amir of brutality. It's just unbelievable, some of
the things at least he reflected. I mean, people on a dialysis machine cut off,
the machine sent to Baghdad; babies in incubators heaved out of the incubators
and the incubators themselves sent to Baghdad. Now, I don't know how many of
these tales can be authenticated, but I do know that when the Amir was here he
was speaking from the heart. And after that came Amnesty International, who
were debriefing many of the people at the border. And it's sickening.
Advertising
As far as the East is from the West, that's how far most
U.S. advertisers want to be removed from any hint of capitalizing on the Iraqi
conflict. —Advertisers steer clear of Mideast,St. Petersburg Times
Initially, most advertisers were ignoring the Middle East
crisis in their ads. It was noted that companies selling information, such as
news organizations, were running advertisements for their coverage of the
conflict.
Citizens for a Free Kuwait
The Citizens for a Free Kuwait was a public
relations committee set up by the Kuwaiti embassy, described by The Times
News as a "Washington, D.C.- based committee comprised of concerned
Kuwaitis and Americans".
Though the committee occupied embassy office space, they
were to be working independently of the embassy.
Hill & Knowlton
In 1990, after being approached by a Kuwaiti expatriate in
New York, Hill & Knowlton took on "Citizens for a Free Kuwait."
The objective of the national campaign was to raise awareness in the United
States about the dangers posed by Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein to Kuwait.
Hill & Knowlton conducted a $1 million study to
determine the best way to win support for strong action. H & K had the
Wirthington Group conduct focus groups to determine the best strategy that
would influence public opinion. The study found that an emphasis on atrocities,
particularly the incubator story, was the most effective.
Hill & Knowlton is estimated to have been given as much
as $12 million by the Kuwaitis for their public relations campaign.
Congressional Human Rights Foundation
The Congressional Human Rights Foundation is a
non-governmental organization that investigates human rights abuse. It was
headed by Democratic U.S. Representative Tom Lantos and Republican
Representative John Porter and rented space in Hill & Knowlton's
Washington headquarters at a $3000 reduced rate.
Testimony
On October 10, 1990 Nayirah was the last to testify at the
Caucus. In her oral testimony, which lasted about 6 minutes, she stated:
I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital with twelve other
women who wanted to help as well. I was the youngest volunteer. The other women
were from twenty to thirty years old. While I was there I saw the Iraqi
soldiers come into the hospital with guns They took the babies out of the
incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to
die.[crying] It was horrifying.
Although Nayirah did not specify how many babies were in the
incubators in her oral testimony, in the written testimony distributed by Hill
and Knowlton, it read "While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come
into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where 15 babies were in
incubators." The testimony was not given under oath.
Representative John Porter, co-chairman of the caucus,
remarked that in his eight years of service on the caucus, he had never heard
such "brutality and inhumanity and sadism." Nayirah's testimony was
described as the most dramatic.
Hill & Knowlton
It is unclear how much of Nayirah's testimony was coached.
Though the firm was supposed to provide only stylistic help, it was reported
that H&K "provided witnesses, wrote testimony, and coached the
witnesses for effectiveness."
Effect
Nayirah's testimony was widely publicized. Hill &
Knowlton, which had filmed the hearing, sent out a video news release to
Medialink, a firm which served about 700 television stations in the United
States.
That night, portions of the testimony aired on ABC's
Nightline and NBC Nightly News reaching an estimated audience between 35 and 53
million Americans. Seven senators cited Nayirah's testimony in their speeches
backing the use of force.[Note 1] President George Bush repeated the story
at least ten times in the following weeks. Her account of the atrocities helped
to stir American opinion in favor of participation in the Gulf War.
Initial response
On January 13, 1991, the Sunday Times reported
that a Dr Ali Al-Huwail could vouch for 92 deaths.
Iraq denied the allegations. On October 16, Iraqi
information minister, Latif Nassif al-Jassem, told the Iraqi News Agency that
"now you [Bush] are using what he [Sheikh Jaber] told you to make Congress
ratify the budget which is in the red because of your policies" adding
that "you, as the president of a superpower, have to weigh words carefully
and not act as a clown who repeats what he is told."
In a visit to Kuwait on October 21, 1990, journalists who
were escorted by Iraqi information ministry officials, doctors at a Kuwaiti
maternity facility denied the incubator allegations.
In the visit, the Iraqi head of the Kuwaiti health
department, Abdul-Rahman Mohammad al-Ugeily, said that "Baghdad had sent
1,000 doctors and other medical to staff to help run Kuwait's 14 hospitals and
health centres following the invasion."
Revelation
A little reportorial investigation would have done a great
service to the democratic process. —John MacArthur
On March 15, 1991, shortly after Kuwait was liberated, John
Martin, an ABC reporter, reported that "patients, including premature
babies, did die, when many of Kuwait's nurses and doctors stopped working or
fled the country" and discovered that Iraqi troops "almost certainly
had not stolen hospital incubators and left hundreds of Kuwaiti babies to
die."
On January 6, 1992, The New York Times published
an op-ed piece by John MacArthur entitled "Remember Nayirah, Witness for
Kuwait?" MacArthur discovered that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti
Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah. MacArthur noted that "the
incubator story seriously distorted the American debate about whether to
support military action" and questioned whether "their
[Representatives Lantos and Porter] special relationship with Hill and Knowlton
should prompt a Congressional investigation to find out if their actions merely
constituted an obvious conflict of interest or, worse, if they knew who the
tearful Nayirah really was in October 1990." The story earned MacArthur
the Monthly Journalism Award from The Washington Monthly in April
1992, and the Mencken Award in 1993.
Subsequent response
Hill and Knowlton
We disseminated information in a void as a basis for
Americans to form opinions. —Frank Mankiewicz, Vice Chairman, Hill &
Knowlton
On January 15, 1992, the CEO of Hill & Knowlton, Thomas
E. Eidson, responded to the concerns raised by MacArthur in a letter to
the editor to The New York Times. Eidson stated that "at no time
has this firm collaborated with anyone to produce knowingly deceptive
testimony" asserting that the firm "had no reason to question her
veracity when she testified following her escape from Kuwait." The letter
explained that Nayirah's charge that Iraqi soldiers removed newborn babies from
incubators was corroborated by Dr. Ibraheem Behbehani, head of the Red
Crescent, before the United Nations Security Council and that the media was not
permitted back inside Kuwait "until after the liberation, there was no way
to check immediately on the stories of refugees." Eidson concluded that
"Nayirah's credibility should no more be questioned than if she had been a
doctor or teacher" and the company's work with the Kuwaitis was consistent
with firm's standards stating that "the public interest was fairly
served."
In August 1992, Howard Paster replaced Robert K. Gray as the
general manager of the Washington office in order to clean up the firm's image.
Critics contended that the Hill & Knowlton had concocted
a fake popular movement, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, and subsequently used
questionable evidence and suspect witnesses to influence public opinion and
policy in the United States and the UN.
Hill & Knowlton's actions taken on behalf of Citizens
for a Free Kuwait, together with those of other major clients including Bank of
Credit and Commerce International, the Church of Scientology, and an
anti-abortion campaign by Catholic bishops raised ethical concerns among public
relations professionals. The concerns, though not new, were more vigorous than
previous ones due to the prominence of the issues.
Tom Lantos response
Hold on to your hats. The grand campaign to rewrite the
history of the Persian Gulf war is on. —Tom Lantos' response to MacArthur
In an interview, Lantos stated that he had concealed
Nayirah's identity at the request of her father in order to protect her family
and friends. Lantos denied any allegations of wrongdoing arguing that "The
media happened to focus on her. If she hadn't testified, they would have
focused on something else." Lantos also stated that:
The notion that any of the witnesses brought to the caucus
through the Kuwaiti Embassy would not be credible did not cross my mind. I have
no basis for assuming that her story is not true, but the point goes beyond
that. If one hypothesizes that the woman's story is fictitious from A to Z,
that in no way diminishes the avalanche of human rights violations.
In a letter to the editor to the New York Times on Jan 27,
1992 entitled "Kuwaiti Gave Consistent Account of Atrocities", Tom
Lantos responded to MacArthur's allegations. He wrote that "Mr.
MacArthur's deceptive article serves only the cynics who seek to rewrite the
history of the Persian Gulf war" noting "the article's sinister
innuendo suggests that the girl was not even in Kuwait at the time of the Iraqi
invasion, and that the whole gruesome incident was a diabolical plot by an
American public relations firm." Lantos wrote that "the fact
that Nayirah was the daughter of the Ambassador of Kuwait made her a more
credible witness" and that her "her relationship to the Ambassador
and Government enhanced her credibility." He also noted that "her
account was consistent with the information we received from other witnesses,
with hundreds of other atrocity stories from Kuwait carried by media around the
globe, and consistent with reports by independent human rights organizations,
such as Amnesty International, who also testified at our hearing and
subsequently published accounts similar to Nayirah's." Lantos concluded
that "given the countless cases of verified Iraqi human rights
violations", it was "unnecessary and counterproductive to invent
atrocities."
Lantos also rejected the allegations of a special
relationship between the caucus and Hill & Knowlton stating that
"caucus activities are held without regard to whether these countries are
represented by any law firm or public relations firm."
In a subsequent letter to New York Times, MacArthur pointed
out that the testimony had been retracted.
Ambassador Sabah
The ambassador has stated that his daughter had witnessed
the atrocities she described, and that her presence in Kuwait could be verified
by the United States Embassy in Kuwait.[50] He also stated "If I
wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't
use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it."
Investigations
Human Rights Watch
In 1992, the human rights organization Middle East Watch, a
division of Human Rights Watch, published the results of their
investigation of the incubator story. Its director, Andrew Whitley, told the
press, "While it is true that the Iraqis targeted hospitals, there is no
truth to the charge which was central to the war propaganda effort that they
stole incubators and callously removed babies allowing them to die on the
floor. The stories were manufactured from germs of truth by people outside the
country who should have known better." One investigator, Aziz Abu-Hamad,
interviewed doctors in the hospital where Nayirah claimed she witnessed Iraqi
soldiers pull 15 infants from incubators and leave them to die. The
Independent reported, "The doctors told him the maternity ward had 25
to 30 incubators. None was(were) taken by the Iraqis, and no babies were taken
from them."
Amnesty International
Amnesty International initially supported the story, but
later issued a retraction. It stated that it "found no reliable evidence
that Iraqi forces had caused the deaths of babies by removing them or ordering
their removal from incubators."
Kroll Report
Kuwaiti officials do not discuss the matter with the press.
In order to respond to these charges, the Kuwaiti government hired Kroll
Associates to undertake an independent investigation of the incubator
story. The Kroll investigation lasted nine weeks and conducted over 250
interviews. The interviews with Nayirah revealed that her original testimony
was wildly distorted at best; she told Kroll that she had actually only seen
one baby outside its incubator for "no more than a moment." She also
told Kroll that she was never a volunteer at the hospital and had in fact
"only stopped by for a few minutes."
Hill & Knowlton spokesman Tom Ross describes the report
as a "vindication of Hill and Knowlton" and that "it
conclusively demonstrates that there were incubator atrocities and that Nayirah
was a witness to them."
Television
Both 20/20 and 60 minutes featured investigative pieces on
the testimony.
Criticism
The campaign has been described by critics as corrupt,
deceptive and unethical and charge that it was used to spread false or
exaggerated tales of Iraqi atrocities.
Lantos was criticized for his withholding the information.
The testimony has been regarded as false by the Chicago
Tribune, Huffington Post and numerous other publications.
Aftermath
In fact, nearly everyone involved in peddling the tale of
the unplugged babies, from Amnesty International to Kuwaiti doctors, has
sprinted away from it. —Newsday
Following the end of the war, Reuters reported that Iraq
returned "98 truckloads of medical equipment stolen from Kuwait, including
two of the baby incubators". Abdul Rahim al-Zeid, an assistant
under-secretary at the Kuwaiti Public Health Ministry, said that by returning
the incubators the Iraqis had unwittingly provided proof that they took them.
Kuwait's chief ambulance officer, Abdul Reda Abbas, stated that "We
think the Iraqis might have returned the incubators by mistake."
Following the revelation of Nayirah's identity, there was a
public outrage that the information had been withheld.
Scholarly commentary
In the end, the question was not whether H&K effectively
altered public opinion, but whether the combined efforts of America's own government,
foreign interests, and private PR and lobbying campaigns drowned out decent and
rational, unemotional debate. —The power house: Robert Keith Gray and the
selling of access and influence in Washington
The content, presentation, distribution, effectiveness, and
purpose of Nayirah's testimony have been the subject of multiple public
relations studies.
In his book, Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative
Discourse, Frans H. van Eemeren stating that "visual messages
which accompany verbal argumentation can be so drastic that rational
argumentation becomes almost impossible" described Nayirah's story as
an argumentum ad misericordiam. In the paper The Hill & Knowlton
Cases: A Brief on the Controversy by Susanne A. Roschwalb, the author
noted that as H&K was a British firm, "what effect did British
concerns -such as the possible collapse of its financial institutions, if the
Kuwaiti currency, the dinar, became worthless -have on Hill & Knowlton’s
efforts?"
Ted Rowse, in his article Kuwaitgate — killing of
Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers exaggerated in the The Washington
Monthly noted that "Most reporters, having apparently been burned by
Hill & Knowlton's handiwork in spreading the original Nayirah story without
checking it out, seem to prefer to let the story fade away, passively falling,
once again, for the company's public relations guile." John R. MacArthur,
who authored Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War has
noted that "at the time, it was the most sophisticated and expensive PR
campaign ever run in the U.S. by a foreign government."
In popular culture
The 2002 HBO movie Live From Baghdad included
several scenes dealing with the incubator allegations, without presenting the
story as unquestioned truth. In that movie, several characters try to determine
the accuracy or inaccuracy of the story, but are unable to draw any
conclusions. After the final credits, a note stated that the incubator
allegations were never substantiated.
See also
To Sell a War
Live From Baghdad
Jumana Hanna
Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah
Saddam Hussein's alleged shredder
Notes
^ This was viewed as important since the January 10,
1991 authorization to use force passed by only 5 senate votes.
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